More than 40 designers have put their own spin on the iconic road signs – originally designed by Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir 50 years ago.

Mark Bonner of GBH

The designs were launched in 1965 as part of the duo's task to create visual harmony across Britain's road system, which was described by the exhibition's curators Made North as "one of the most ambitious and effective information design projects". Two new typefaces were also designed for use: Transport and Motorway.

Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis

For the Design Museum exhibition, the recognisable graphic shapes and typography have been reinterpreted with different colours, patterns and materials.

Mark Bonner has retained the recognisable layout of the motorway signs, while Jonathan Barnbrook has created a more chaotic, multi-layered and patterned design using Calvert and Kinneir's Transport typeface.

Jonathan Barnbrook

Asked if she had a favourite, Calvert told Dezeen: "A difficult choice, as I like them all. But if pressed, it would have to be Betty Jackson's elegant personalisation of the red triangle."

Fuel

Calvert said that one of the biggest challenges of the project was "trying to convince a small section of the design community that capital and lowercase sans-serif letters, in transport, were far more effective than Kindersley's capitals-only alphabet".

Henrik Kubel

When asked why the signs have come to occupy such a key place both in Britain's visual culture and designers' hearts, Calvert said: "Because they are familiar and serve a purpose".

Tony Brook

"Although some of the ill-considered additions which appeared long after our involvement ended, in 1963, could do with a review — particularly regarding unnecessary clutter," she added.

Graphic Thought Facility

The exhibition has been curated by Patrick Murphy, director at Made North – a design platform, gallery and conference in northern England. Alongside the display of other designers' work is a selection of the original signs, and a one-off version of the Road Works sign, created by Calvert for the exhibition.

Mike Dempsey

The work is on show in the Design Museum's Tank and Riverside Hall as part of London Design Festival 2015, and will remain open until 25 October.

]]>https://www.dezeen.com/2015/09/25/design-museum-exhibition-50-year-anniversary-british-road-signage-london-design-festival-2015/feed/1"We're trying to get design out of the way"https://www.dezeen.com/2013/04/09/were-trying-to-get-design-out-of-the-way/
https://www.dezeen.com/2013/04/09/were-trying-to-get-design-out-of-the-way/#commentsTue, 09 Apr 2013 09:45:48 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=306483Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in our final movie from Design Indaba in Cape Town, Ben Terrett, head of design at Government Digital Service, explains the design principles behind the new Gov.uk website, which combines all the UK Government's websites into a single site. Update: this interview is featured in Dezeen Book of Interviews, which is

"There were thousands of websites, and we folded them into Gov.uk to make just one," says Terrett. "The reason to do that really is to ensure that the user doesn't have to understand government to find something out. They just go to one place and it's there. They don't have to know which department has what information."

Terrett explains that the core idea behind it was to make it as simple and intuitive as possible for the user. "People only go onto government websites once or twice a year to find out a particular thing," he says. "So people shouldn't spend time relearning how to use it. The core of all our work is focussing on user need."

Terrett sought advice from Margaret Calvert, the graphic designer who, along with Jock Kinneir, designed the UK's road signs, which have been imitated around the world. Terrett cites her work as one of the iconic pieces of British design he took inspiration from: "There is this huge catalogue or canon of projects that have got this fantastic heritage of this public sector sort of design work," he says, also citing the London Underground tube map and Joseph Bazalgette's sewer network. "The more you look at it the more they were trying to do a very similar sort of thing to what we're doing."

The Gov.uk site only uses a single font and has been stripped of any graphical flourishes. "Something we're trying to do in particular is let design get out of the way and let the user get to what they want," Terrett says. "You shouldn't come to the website and go: 'wow, look at the graphic design'. We haven't yet achieved that in most web interfaces; they're still getting in the way [and] you can see the graphic design everywhere. We need to get past that."

Terrett believes that, with new technology like Google Glass simplifying or even removing the user interface altogether, websites will eventually catch up. "Google Glass and other things that we don't know about yet will prompt people to think harder and work harder on that stuff," he says. "But there's a long way to go and I think it's a fascinating challenge, a really exciting challenge."